Equality California, along with Equality California Institute and the Equality California PAC, share a mission to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Californians. Founded in 1998, Equality California has offices in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
EQCA is California’s LGBT civil rights and advocacy organization. Equality California leads efforts for LGBT civil rights at the state level through an array of strategies including sponsoring legislation and leading efforts to ensure their passage, lobbying legislators and other government officials, building coalitions, and empowering other organizations and individuals to engage in the political process. EQCA, working in partnership with California’s LGBT Legislative Caucus, has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited rights for LGBT individuals to the state with the most comprehensive LGBT civil rights protections in the nation.
EQCA, on behalf of its members, is the organizational plaintiff in the affirmative lawsuit filed by NCLR, ACLU, Lambda and several law firms challenging California’s discriminatory marriage laws. Additionally, EQCA was a defendant in the lawsuit seeking to overturn California’s domestic partnership law, which EQCA had sponsored. With dozens of chapters around the state, Equality California works to empower and support local activists –LGBT and non-LGBT – in the fight for legal equality for same-sex couples and their children through media visibility and public education within local communities.